


Freed In Death

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Albeit With The Force, Awesome Padmé Amidala, Bittersweet Ending, Canonical Character Death, Evil Sheev Palpatine, Father-Daughter Relationship, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghost Padmé Amidala, Forced Pregnancy, Gen, Hint Of Poe Dameron/Zorii Bliss, Hopefully Not An Ass Pull, Inferences of Rape/Non-Con, Leia Organa Deserves Better, Leia Organa Needs a Hug, Leia Organa-centric, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Mentioned Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Minor Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, Missing Scene, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Palpatine Is Anakin’s Father, Protective Padmé Amidala, Rey Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Tags Contain Spoilers, The Force, What Bloodline Means, a mention at least, gapfiller, in the most technical sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:47:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21991426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Leia reunites with familiar faces.
Relationships: Bail Organa & Leia Organa, Breha Organa & Leia Organa, Leia Organa & Anakin Skywalker, Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Padmé Amidala & Leia Organa, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Kudos: 47
Collections: Genprompt Bingo Round 17





	Freed In Death

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Exhaustion
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: What started out as a Leia tribute ended up with tying up quite a few loose ends. Warning for discussions of nonconsensual impregnation as well as TROS spoilers. Also, I know this sounds absurd, but I had to do something with that Palpatine theory.

She wakes after she fades in a place that feels all too familiar. That is all too familiar. Alderaan. The courtyard, the vast skies that spread above. She knows Alderaan, and to see it there once more, even if it is in death...it is something she never thought she’d see.   
  
It’s fitting, she supposed, that she end up there. Here, at the end of all things. She wished that wasn’t how their line had to die out. The final vengeance of a spiteful, petty old man, and his spiteful, petty apprentice. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. It simply wasn’t.   
  
"Leia.”  
  
Bail. Her father, not by blood, but by act, by deed, definitely. He was how she remembered him, warm and vibrant and familiar. And Breha — beautiful, dignified, kind. Leia pauses; she’s forgotten, almost, how much she missed them.   
  
“It’s been some time,” Breha said. “We missed you. When Alderaan was destroyed, we only took comfort in the idea you were off-planet.”  
  
“I could have saved you.” Even remembering...  
  
“You preserved us,” Bail said. “Honored us.” A beat. “Leia...you didn’t get to meet her in life. It’s fitting that you meet her now.”  
  
A woman. Soft-featured, her hair loose, wearing a white hospital gown. Leia thought, almost ridiculously for a moment, of an angel. Perhaps in a way, they all were that.   
  
This was Padme, then. It was only now that Leia met her, at the end of all things.   
  
“I wish I’d known you in life,” Leia said. “I had images, feelings...but I never knew you.”  
  
Padme nodded. “I didn’t want to leave you behind,” she says. “You or Luke. I can take comfort that I was able to watch you, from where I was, and guide you. I was with you, Leia. Even when you didn’t see me.”  
  
“I had a feeling.” There had been a feeling, just a feeling, when everything Vader did on the First Death Star was too much for her to bear — there had been a moment where she had felt someone. Beautiful, kind, sad...and too familiar. _I’ll protect you, sweetheart. Just hold on._  
  
“You were brave,” Padme said. “Even when you had every right to give up, you didn’t. Every step you took, every choice you made...you _fought._ You saved your son, in a way.”  
  
“Han helped. In his way.” Leia sighed as she spoke. “It was my fault. I good as helped him fall to the Dark Side. I thought Palpatine was dead. I didn’t think he’d find ways to endure — or try to get Luke to kill Ben.” Her voice cracked. “Everything that happened was good as my fault.”  
  
“No, Leia.” Even as Anakin walked towards her, Leia couldn’t say she expected to see him again. Him, of all people. “It was my arrogance, my vanity, that led to this. I didn’t tell you why I fell. I thought I could protect you, Luke, and your mother. Palpatine was good at presenting himself as my only option. I took lives in the name of you, Luke and your mother. Even your mother’s own life. I didn’t think Sidious would hate my family enough to use Ben as a tool of revenge.”  
  
“None of us did,” Padme said. “Palpatine, Snoke...” Her voice darkened. “For all they’ve done, they’re likely being punished for it.”  
  
“I hope,” Leia said, bitterly.   
  
Anakin nodded. “The Force has its ways,” he said. A beat. “Palpatine didn’t tell his granddaughter everything. In a way, Palpatine’s your grandfather, Leia.”  
  
“How?” Leia said.   
  
Anakin continued. “His Master, Plagueis, had a gift to some, an abomination to others. He was able to manipulate midichlorians...the microorganisms that communicate the Force. It’s all to create life. Or some facsimile of it. He found a woman. My mother. And he used the Force, manipulated the midichlorians to artificially impregnate her.”  
  
“He raped her,” Leia said. Her voice sounded dry. Disbelieving. There really were no limits to the Emperor’s depravity, that an innocent woman was all but impregnated without her consent.   
  
“Your grandmother said there was no father,” Anakin said darkly. “From a certain point of view it’s true, but I also think she was trying to protect me from the truth. That that monstrous beast was my father. That my own father manipulated me, lied to me, imprisoned me in a suit...even was willing to target the rest of his indirect family.”  
  
Padme placed a hand on Anakin’s arm. “Ani,” she said, and there was something amusing about the most feared man in the galaxy having the nickname “Ani”, Leia thought. Almost. “Palpatine wasn’t your true father. Men like Qui-Gon were. They guided you, they nurtured you. Family’s so much more than blood.”  
  
“True.” The way Anakin smiled, it was like Padme could truly calm him. Then, “I suppose in the strangest of ways, Rey and Ben are related.” He sighed. “They’re both tied to Palpatine. Rey by blood, Ben through me.”  
  
 _And so am I._ The idea she had even a sliver of that beast in her...Leia didn’t want to think about it too hard.   
  
“So Rey...”  
  
“...is also part of the Skywalker clan,” Anakin said. A pause. “My old lightsaber called to her at Maz’s for a reason. It recognized Palpatine’s other descendant. A Skywalker in the most technical sense. Even if she wasn’t a Skywalker by blood, I wouldn’t blame her for taking up our mantle. You were more family to her than her monster of a grandfather ever was.”  
  
“I’m glad for it.” In a way, Leia supposed, she should have known. There was darkness in Rey, but also an incredible capacity for saving others. She didn’t go down the same path as Anakin. She forged her own path. She became more.   
  
She could feel a shift, in that moment, in the Force. Ben was joining them. He had done well, in the end, Leia decided. He had saved Rey — his family, in the most technical of ways. The first of the new Skywalkers. Even as he stumbled towards her, Leia knew that in that moment, she was proud to have such a hero as her son. The man who had done evil. The man who, in the end, had gone out the way he wanted to do: saving others.   
  
“Is she safe?” Ben said. “Rey.”  
  
Leia nodded. “She’s safe, Ben. She’s alive. You can leave this galaxy behind.”  
  
“I don’t know.” A beat. “You gave up on me.”  
  
“And I was a fool,” Leia said. “Ben...you did beautifully. We can rest easy. We won.”  
  
“I said goodbye to Poe. I had to.” Ben sighed. “I hope, whatever path he takes, he’ll be all right. He deserves to be. Whether he goes with Zorii or not...”  
  
Leia nodded. “Whatever he does, wherever he goes...he’ll be as radiant as his parents before him. I know it, Ben.” A beat. “Come on. I doubt that in the company of Skywalkers before us, any one of us will be ashamed.”  
  
“No,” Ben said. “You won’t.”  
  
“And neither will you.”  
  
They walked into the distant horizon. And through the Force, Leia reached out towards Rey. To reassure her that no matter what happened, she would keep the Skywalker line safe, and there was no need to be ashamed.


End file.
